The Walking Dead (AMC)

Most of the comics I read are superhero based, but I was in the mood for something different back in 2003, and spied the first issue of Robert Kirkman’s “The Walking Dead” amidst all the other stuff. So I picked it up, loved it, and made it one of my monthly “pulls”, one I still read to this day while other comics have lost my interest. Thus, you can imagine how excited I was that it was becoming a TV show at all – friggin Brett Ratner could be directing it and I’d still be pumped. But then they went and hired Frank Darabont, director of 2 of my all time favorite movies? Jesus.

So is the show good? Hell yes it is. It’s great, in fact, and if subsequent episodes are even half as good then it could easily go down as one of the best horror-based shows in my lifetime. Darabont did an amazing job adapting the first issue while expanding things (the sequence with Morgan and Duane, for example, is much longer) and setting up the plotlines that will become integral to the show, such as Rick and Lori’s marriage troubles. And he did so without sacrificing the book’s most surprising but appealing factor – it’s not a wall to wall zombie gore fest. Some issues don’t have any zombies in them at all, and I wouldn’t be surprised to have episodes take a similar approach down the line once it’s an established hit (and it damn well better be!). It would have been easy to load the premiere up with big setpieces and TV spot-ready chaos, but it’s remarkably faithful to the book’s “character first” tone. Only at the very end of the episode do we really see more than a couple of zombies on-screen.

Don’t get me wrong though – it still delivers plenty of zombie action over the course of its 70 minutes. But it’s SCARY zombie stuff, not Zack Snyder-esque frenetic craziness. The opening scene (which is not in the comic, if I’m remembering correctly – it’s been a while and the issue is buried at the back of my closet with all my other comics from the 80s to 2006 or so) is a perfect example, as Rick makes his way around what looks like a makeshift camp, seeking gas, only to discover a little girl zombie (bunny slippers are a nice touch, Frank). It’s a creepy, suspense-driven scene, the type you rarely get in modern zombie fare, which is usually seemingly designed to impress Michael Bay (or make us laugh).

It’s also got a lot of heart, which is something Darabont excels at (and I hope future episodes are able to retain). Remember the scene in Shawshank Redemption where the prisoners enjoy a beer? There’s something like that here involving a working shower – it’s those little glimmers of hope that make the show so compelling. Without them, it would just be a grim, unpleasant experience. You need those bits of levity and optimism for everything else to work. And without spoiling, there’s a heartbreaking moment involving Morgan (the great Lennie James from Jericho) near the end of the episode, also added for the show per my memory, that packs a wallop never even attempted in the Resident Evils or even Romero Dead films of late.

The cast is pretty spot on, though most of them we don’t meet until the last act. Andrew Lincoln may not have been at the top of many fans’ dream list, but we can probably chalk that up to the fact that most Americans are unfamiliar with him (he’s a big TV star in the UK). It doesn’t take long for him to quickly prove he’s up to the task – he’s a terrific lead. Assuming that the show continues to follow the book, Rick won’t always be making the most “crowd-pleasing” decisions, and so you need an appealing actor in order to keep audiences from turning on him – I doubt this will be a problem for Lincoln. An inspired choice. And Jeffrey DeMunn is pretty much the spitting image of Dale; granted he’s a Darabont regular, but I they would have gone after him even if Darabont had no involvement. Sadly we don’t get to meet Laurie Holden as Andrea yet (though we DO meet her sister Amy, played by Frozen’s Emma Bell), but I appreciate that they didn’t end the pilot on a big moment with everyone coming together – Rick didn’t meet up with them until issue 3 or 4, and thus hopefully they will milk the separation on the show for another episode or two.

As expected, KNB’s FX work is outstanding, rivaling their feature film output. The legless zombie in particular is incredible, and the makeup is extensive even in the big “crowd” scenes near the end – they didn’t half-ass anything here. I wish they didn’t rely on digital blood so much, but if the time they would spend hooking up squibs is spent on the look of the zombies instead, I won’t complain. The production design is also mighty impressive for a TV show; the scenes of Rick wandering the empty city are appropriately eerie and surprisingly vast.

I really cannot wait for future installments. The DVD had episode two but I need to pace myself, because if I watch it now it will be almost a month until I get the 3rd episode (when it airs on AMC). Plus the screener quality wasn’t exactly demo material – non-anamorphic, low-res, and occasionally watermarked. As much as I want to see what happens next, I’d like to SEE what happens next, if you know what I mean. But take that as another sign of the show’s merit – I hate poor presentation, and anything else I would have just shut off, but I was too engrossed by what was happening to do that here. And that’s with having read the comic! Folks who haven’t been introduced to Robert Kirkman’s series yet will be even more blown away.